mankind, am desirous of felicity, my closest attention has been fixed
upon your discourse. I doubt not the truth of a position which so
learned a man has so confidently advanced. Let me only know what it is
to live according to nature."

"When I find young men so humble and so docile," said the philosopher,
"I can deny them no information which my studies have enabled me to
afford. To live according to nature is to act always with due regard to
the fitness arising from the relations and qualities of causes and
effects; to concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of universal
felicity; to co-operate with the general disposition and tendency of the
present system of things."

The prince soon found that this was a sage whom he should understand
less as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed, and was silent; and the
philosopher, supposing him satisfied, departed with the air of a man who
had co-operated with the present system.


_IV.--Happiness They Find Not_


Rasselas returned home full of reflections, and finding that Imlac
seemed to discourage a continuance of the search, began _to_ discourse
more freely with his sister, who had yet the same hope with himself.

"We will divide the task between us," said she. "You shall try what is
to be found in the splendour of courts, and I will range the shades of
humbler life."